Material jet systems (often called “inkjet systems) may work with materials which are supplied to the printer head in their fluid phase. However, in so-called “hot melt” systems, e.g. using wax-like materials, the printing material only becomes fluid at increased temperature, and thus has to be processed by a heated jet printer head. However, regular and controlled supply of solid “ink” (material, in general) may be a problem. A heated supply system may be used, in which the ink is heated and kept above its melting temperature in a rather large storage container and supplied—in molten form—to the printer head. In this way a large part of the device has to be kept above melting temperature. A known alternative is to use a heated reservoir at the printer head that is filled up now and then by addition of a piece of solid ink. A disadvantage of this type of system is that a considerable quantity of ink must be kept at temperature in the neighbourhood of the printer head.
Conventional printing of solid ink materials is known, for example, from EP1552941 which discloses a printer having a solid ink stick feed. However, these printers function at temperatures which are not suitable for printing solid materials which have higher melting temperatures like lead, tin, copper, silver etc., the system has to be heated in that way that in practice this not only becomes very complicated, but in view of the reactivity of metals in fluid phase, even almost impossible.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,185 discloses a printing system having a flexible web of hot melt ink, to be incrementally advanced to a heater location to prevent deterioration of the ink. However for molten metals, a desire exists to further minimize the heat load of the jet system.